Ahhhh…. The trials and tribulations of back pain – perhaps the most elusive member of the “aches and pains” family. How it feels and where it comes from can vary drastically from person to person. It can be attributed to anything and everything from a...

By MICHAEL YAREMKO Minimize Injury Potential – Maximize Performance! When someone says that you have potential, they are really saying, “You could be great, but you aren’t right now.” Athletes typically don’t ever want to hear these words, especially goalies, but it...

Think you need a full weight rack for a serious arm day? Not so fast. There are lots of bicep exercises you can master using just your bodyweight and your TRX Suspension Trainer. Below, we’ve outlined five moves to help you power up your upper body. Whether you...

By MICHAEL YAREMKO Avoiding non-contact injuries with corrective exercise can help keep your hockey team on the ice and in the game. Anytime I mention that I am a hockey player, the first question I get is, “How come you still have all of your teeth?” Hockey is...

By Kyle Stull You’ve probably heard the term biceps tendonitis as gym members highlight an ache or pain at the front of their shoulder. But what is biceps tendonitis and what can be done to avoid it? WHAT IS BICEPS TENDONITIS (AKA: TENDINITIS) AND WHAT CAN YOU DO?...

February 06, 2018 by Dr. David Tiberio Category: Applied Functional Science Shoulder joint motion (glenohumeral articulation) occurs when there is relative movement between the head of the humerus and the glenoid fossa of the scapula. Like all joints, real motion of...

By Fabio Comana The Nordic combined, a combination of cross-country skiing and jumping was one of the original five sports at the first-ever Winter Olympics held in France in 1924. To this day, endurance sports like the biathlon, cross-country skiing and the Nordic...

By Nino MAGADDINO With increasing healthcare costs for businesses across the United States, the need for fitness and wellness professionals continues to grow. Fortunately, many businesses have decided to approve corporate fitness and wellness programs to lower...

By BRIAN SUTTON, MA, MS, CSCS, NASM-CPT, CES, PES · Olympic lifts and their variations have long been used as a strengthening technique to enhance sports performance. Olympic lifts and their variations have long been used as a strengthening technique to enhance sports...

By STACEY PENNEY, MS, NASM-CPT, CES, PES, FNS Foam rolling is a self-myofascial release (SMR) stretching technique that has been embraced throughout the fitness industry. This effective and simple to do technique delivers positive, feel good results. Foam rollers...

By Kyle Stull With weight loss being one of the common goals for clients, will recommending a daily visit to the scale improve their results? See what this study found. Journal Article: Steinberg, D.M., Bennett, G.G., Askew, S., & Tate, D.F. (2015). Weighing...

BY TONY AMBLER-WRIGHT January is a good time to check in with clients and find out if they identify more with Mr. Heat Miser or Mr. Snow Miser. Those who “never want to know a day that’s over 40 degrees” may be spending their spare time conquering moguls, slicing up...

By SCOTT KEPPEL Here we go, again. “It’s a new year and this is my year! I know I said that last year, and years in the past, but this time I mean it. No more yo-yo dieting, no more putting everyone else’s needs before mine, no more of this dead-end job, no more, no...

By CHRIS ECKLUND, MA, NASM-PES, CSCS, USAW, TP A high school athlete walks through our doors and we can see their strength, stability and biomechanical control deficits from their gait pattern. We’ve also had collegiate and professional athletes come to our facility...

By John Berardi, Ph.D. It’s a hot debate: Can personal trainers, health coaches, and other non-RD professionals give nutrition advice to their clients? You’ll be surprised (and relieved) to hear: Yes, to a degree. Here’s exactly what you’re allowed to say, and why...

By Kyle Stull Foot pain can be one of the most debilitating types of pain and discomfort for both the average individual and the athlete alike. To put it simply, when your feet hurt, everything hurts. The foot is essentially the foundation of the body; it is the first...

By Fabio Comana Drinking a protein shake after resistance-training is a popular nutritional strategy adopted by many fitness enthusiasts and athletes to boost muscle protein synthesis (MPS), but does evidence support this practice, and if so, then what type of protein...

By NASM We know that weight loss or body fat reduction is largely based on a numbers game. And “working out” is a way of controlling the numbers (less calories in, more calories out and weight loss change can be achieved). Cardiovascular training and resistance...

By Fabio Comana Neuroplasticity was a relatively unknown term until the 1970s when scientists began accepting the notion that our brain is a not a physiologically static organ, becoming fixed shortly after birth with approximately 100 billion neurons (nerve cells) (1,...

By Joshua Stone: Injuries in golf occur as they do during participation in any athletic orientated activity. Research indicates injuries in golf relate to functions of age, skill level, and frequency of play. According to Gosheger et al., over 80% of golf-related...

By Chris Korfist Growing up in the ’70s and ’80s, a big part of my week was getting up early on Saturday morning to watch cartoons. One of my favourites was “Super Friends” (my second favourite was “Land of the Lost”), especially the episodes with Bizarro, who was...

By THOMAS F. WEST, PHD, LAT, ATC Our upper extremity is designed around our hands, our primary tool for manipulating objects in our environment. To this end, the shoulder complex provides the upper extremity with a wide range of motion, allowing us to position our...

by Kyle Stull Personal trainers have the difficult task of not only managing themselves but also the hundreds of clients they will see throughout their careers. This includes managing their workouts, re-assessments, and their emotions – yes, their emotions. Emotional...

By RICH FAHMY, MS, NASM-CPT, CES, PES Cueing is a vital skill that every fitness professional should master. It is essential for coaching proper technique and it creates a connection between you and your client, conveying how in-tune you are with their movement and...

By Kyle Stull Wrist injuries are very common. This is especially true for those on the ice and snow, and also in wheeled sports and activities such as skating and skateboarding in more recent years. In fact, wrist injuries are the second most common type of upper...

By Fabio Comana Despite growing popularity and adoption of programs incorporating heart rate (HR) zone methodology, the fitness industry in general appears to lack a solid understanding of the scientific facts and limitations to this programming concept. The goal...

By BRYAN D. BURNSTEIN, MS, LAT, ATC, CSCS, NASM-CES, PES, FNS, USAW A successful sports performance program may be summarized by two primary outcomes; athlete availability and athlete durability. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the sports performance...

By RICH FAHMY, MS, NASM-CPT, CES, PES The lunge is a versatile, simple and effective movement for lower body training. Various positions, planes of motion and speeds can all yield different training adaptations for the exerciser. Lunges are the gift that keeps on...

By MARTY MILLER, ATC, DHSC, NASM-CPT, CES, PES, MASTER INSTRUCTOR Core training has become a staple of almost all conditioning programs. Whether it is for high-level athletes, the weekend warrior, or your average fitness enthusiast, “working the core” tends to get a...

By DAVID CRUZ, DC, CSCS, FMS, SFMA · Incidence of IT Band Syndrome The warm summer weather is the perfect setting for people to get outdoors and participate in the activities they enjoy. However, too much of a good thing can lead to overuse injuries. Iliotibial band...

By Geoff Lecovin Adverse gastrointestinal (GI) complaints, such as cramps, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea are common problems faced by up to 90% of endurance athletes. Exercise-related gastrointestinal symptoms are inconvenient, can adversely affect performance and in...

By Kyle Stull Different foam rolling techniques: Why the fuss? It seems as though the best way to foam roll is in the name—roll. Rolling back and forth does have some merit and support from the scientific community. In a recently published review of foam rolling,...

By INGRID OWEN · We are in the health and wellness business. Our common denominator is serving a consumer desiring guidance on their journey. Regardless of how you structure your interaction and professional guidance, the first step is always about setting appropriate...

by Michael Rosengart, CPT, CES, CSCS In order to perform your best, you need to move well in a biomechanical way and a mobility practice will help you do exactly this. Can you get into the correct position on every exercise or drill? Do you have the ability to move...

AMANDA VOGEL, MA As stereotypes go, you could say group fitness is the domain of women. Men are of course welcome. It’s just that, at many facilities, they seem to overlook group fitness classes as a viable workout option. But why? One good guess is the way group...

By Jessica Mathews What to Look For in a Group Fitness Instructor Love to bust a move in Zumba? Look forward to unwinding on your mat in yoga? Get pumped up just thinking about breaking a sweat in boot camp? If you’re an avid group fitness goer you’ve probably noticed...

AMANDA VOGEL, MA · The easy part of being a fitness instructor or group trainer is welcoming regular participants into class each week. They’re familiar to us, and each other. We see them often enough to know a bit about them: perhaps their history with...

By GEOFF LECOVIN It’s been said that Americans have more food than any other country in the world and more diets to keep them from it. Diet and fitness trends come and go. Currently we are in a low-carb/high-fat craze, yet for many years it was high-carb/low-fat.As a...

By Kyle Stull Foam rolling, a form of self-myofascial release (SMR), hit the mainstream almost 15 years ago and is continuing to increase in popularity. While there are several ways to measure these popularity trends, an interesting approach is to look at the...

By TRX Editor FUNCTIONAL TRAINING Aren’t they the same thing as medicine balls?” asked the unassuming gym-goer on more than one occasion. Quite the contrary. As many of us know, these two classic pieces of functional training equipment have some similarities –...

By DAVID CRUZ, DC, CSCS, FMS, SFMA We can all relate to our mothers telling us to “sit up” and “don’t slouch” when we were kids but never really took it to heart. Now research is indicating that mom actually did know best about posture. Considering how often we use...

By CHRISTINE ROMANI-RUBY Range of motion is an important part of any conditioning program. Increasing flexibility improves joint motion, while a decrease in flexibility results in less motion at the joint. Enhanced flexibility can provide many benefits, including a...

By NASM Boost your clients’ workout and fitness motivation with smart play- as simple as the roll of the dice. Playful exercise can be something as simple as a game of tag. While that’s fun, it probably won’t target all of the areas a client needs to work on. To do...

By Jared Meacham Personal trainers must look at the concept of physical fitness results through many different lenses. What amounts to optimal fitness for one client may not necessarily be the bee’s knees of fitness achievement for another. This blog post is a basic...

By Hanna Fillingham Sharon Stone was the definition of ageless beauty this week when attending the Women’s Choice Awards show in Los Angeles on Wednesday evening. The 57-year-old, who was honoured the prestigious icon award for her humanitarian work, took to Instagram...

By John Polley Blanket statements like this usually annoy me, but I really mean this one. I mean it because variety makes variety better and variety makes uniformity better too. Variety enhances mental, emotional, and physical outcomes and experiences, for all humans....

By Josh Elsesser Metabolic conditioning is more than just cardiorespiratory exercise. As a fitness professional, you need to be able to design a conditioning program for your clients that effectively addresses their unique physiology, as well as providing them the...

By Josh Elsesser A quick Google search for the topic of program design for weight loss provides well over 2 million results. Needless to say, there is a lot of information, and sometimes misinformation, on the “best” ways to lose weight. Known as the Law of...

by Sean Greely The dream of every entrepreneur is to create a profitable business that gives them the freedom to live the kind of life they want. But if your pricing and packaging aren’t right, you’ll never achieve that dream. There are two common mistakes that...

BRIAN ODDI, PH.D., CPT, NASM-PES, NASE-CSS There are many individuals who are striving to stay healthy and fit, however, they lack time to dedicate to a fitness program due to the busy demands of family, work, and pleasure. Speed training has shown to be a very...

By Josh Elsesser Stress is one of the major contributing factors to over 60% of all human illness and disease1. So it’s not surprising that stress is also preventing your personal training clients from achieving the results that they are working so hard for. In fact,...

By BRIAN SUTTON Today’s typical golfer faces many challenges. Not only are golf courses becoming longer and more difficult, but today’s golfer is actually less prepared to play the game. In today’s automated society of long commutes, computers and television, many...

By Shannon Fable Keeping your sales funnel primed with new prospects is important for long-term success in the fitness industry. But, we have a problem. We’ve only been taught a few ways to get in front of new prospects and how we’ve been taught to ‘pick up’ clients...

By STACEY PENNEY, MS, NASM-CPT, CES, PES, FNS How are those goals coming along? Setting a goal is about making changes, looking at what is — in the here and now — and what we want it to be. Creating and committing to the path to get there is what makes for the...

By Mike Bracko Stretching and flexibility training have undergone dramatic changes in the fitness and sports training realm. Over the last ten to fifteen years more research has been published and subsequently applied to fitness and conditioning programs. Previously,...

By Kyle Still Learn how and when to make proper exercise progressions. If you’re using the calendar to progress clients, it’s time to think about digging deeper into the how and why of progressions. Understanding the phases of learning and the neural continuum can...

By NASM It’s a definitive “yes” when it comes to walking, hiking, bike riding, playing tennis or any activity that both people can equally take part in and enjoy. These are great ways for couples to squeeze in exercise, support each other’s health, and enjoy quality...

By NASM You can navigate clients past common motivation blockers—here’s how. In comes the phone call, or maybe a text, your client—the one who did so well in the beginning—is getting in touch to say she won’t make her next session. Then it’s the one after that. When...

By Shannon Fable It’s time to refresh the idea of the comp training session if you want to land long term personal training clients. You, and your prospective clients, have to explore the real value behind the free session, beyond just the try before you buy...

By NASM For fitness professionals who work with athletes, understanding the specific developmental needs of a given athlete is crucial to enhancing their overall athletic capabilities. One of the major components for improving this is the development of speed,...

By NASM The NASM Performance Enhancement Specialization (PES) has provided the pathway to career success for personal trainers working with clients at every level of athletic performance. PES gives you the knowledge and tools to build individualised, sport-specific...

By SEAN CRISTEA A powerful vertical jump is often considered the epitome of athleticism. Many sports, such as basketball, volleyball, and some track and field events, require the athlete to perform at high levels in this movement [1]. However, many athletes find...

By The National Academy of Sports Medicine The NASM Performance Enhancement Specialization (NASM-PES) was developed to teach fitness professionals how to elevate an athlete’s training to achieve noticeable results while also decreasing the chance for injury. When...

By SHANNON FABLE At a time when the need for qualified fitness professionals is at an all-time high, it’s hard to understand why so many instructors and personal trainers struggle to fill classes or find clients. As an industry, we are trained first to analyze the...

By Dan Edwardes Parkour hHas involved quadrupedal locomotion patterns, crawling drills, since its inception over 25 years ago. Anyone who has ever come to one of our classes,workshops or events will be familiar with just how challenging, demanding and sophisticated...

By Andrew Mills As fitness professionals and sports enthusiasts, we know how devastating an ACL injury can be for an athlete, both professional and recreational. Discover how the NASM Corrective Exercise Continuum can be used to help prevent this potentially career...

By Angie Mille MS There are few training tools in the fitness mainstream that pique interest and create more discussion than the kettlebell. For some, an intimidating ball of iron, for others a versatile piece of equipment that with proper training can transform your...

By TRX Believe it or not, ski season is right around the corner. We know, we know – your beach towel is still in the hamper, your swimsuit has barely dried, and although you might not actually click/strap in for another 30-40 days, it’s important to begin...

By National Acadamy of Sports Medicine As a Certified Personal Trainer (CPT), it’s important to realise that just about every client you work with could be susceptible to common injuries and ailments, ranging from low-back pain to ACL tears to shoulder pain. The...

Almost every person has some sort of muscular dysfunction or imbalance that can lead to pain and injury. The NASM Corrective Exercise Specialization (CES) delivers a proven method that reduces dysfunction and helps people move, feel and live better. The CES is...

When stress, anxiety and fatigue combine, the body reacts by tightly contracting the muscles. Eventually, bands or knots form in muscle tissue that will not release on their own. These painfully tight spots are called trigger points. Trigger points can refer pain to...

by Leigh Weingus, mbg Yoga & Fitness Editor If you’ve never run a race before—whether it’s a 5K, 10K, or full-on marathon—it can be intimidating. It can also be really hard to know where to start. Maybe you’re following a training plan or...

By NASM More and more fitness professionals are targeting specific demographic groups – from road warriors to dog lovers to cancer survivors and patients. Does it work? Trainers reveal the rewards—and the challenges. ON-THE-GO GOALS Last summer, after 10 years as a...

By NASM Fatigue might feel as if it begins in the body, but the mind plays a key role. Though we tend to blame our bodies for fatigue, the brain actually sets the pace of energy use and holds a little energy in reserve. Here are a few ways to help clients tap that...

By STACEY PENNEY, MS, NASM-CPT, CES, PES, FNS Falling can be a serious and life changing event, especially for older adults. There are some simple interventions that can help reduce the risk of falling, and exercise is one of them. The statistics on falling are...

Yes, they can — with proper training and some important caveats. By John Berardi, Ph.D. It’s a hot debate: Can personal trainers, health coaches, and other non-RD professionals give nutrition advice to their clients? You’ll be surprised (and relieved) to hear: Yes, to...

by Juliet Kaska Workout burnout is a common problem for the avid exerciser. Effects can be as simple as lethargy or not seeing results and as serious as severe injury and organ failure. In other words, we should not take burnout lightly—and we should take the warning...

BY KENNETH MILLER, MS Got Power? Training for power has been underrepresented, or at least misrepresented, for its benefit and application in life. When we’re younger we take for granted our ability to sprint after a ball, jump over a fence, or evade the person who is...

By DAVID CRUZ, DC, CSCS, FMS, SFMA · AUGUST 23, 2016 Assessing this full body movement provides a foundation for designing a client’s exercise program. See how to use the results of a squat assessment to incorporate corrective exercise strategies and potentially lower...

By FABIO COMANA We see it, read it and perhaps even witness it – fasted cardio for weight loss. This approach is currently trending in many exercise circles, but does it really stand up to all the hype? Let’s examine this concept through a series of practices – say...

DAVID CRUZ, DC, CSCS, FMS, SFMA The ability to perform a squat or partial squat is an essential primal movement in life we must all be able to do, whether you are 8 or 80 years old. When we think of a squat, most of us associate the move with weight training or a...

BY ELLEN NORDBERG Running in deep water reduces impact, adds resistance, increases flexibility and improves circulation. With recent research demonstrating that the effect of training in water can equal the same level of effort on land, it’s no mystery why water...

By Fabio Comana. Despite research dating back over 30 years, several misconceptions surrounding lactic acid (lactate) still exist amongst fitness practitioners and the general public (1). Common misconceptions include that it was considered a primary cause of fatigue...

By DAVID CRUZ, DC, CSCS, FMS, SFMA The economic impact of low back pain (LBP) is greater than $100 billion per year and causes more disability globally than any other condition (1,2). It is the most common cause of activity limitation in adults aged 45 and younger and...

Movement Is Bigger Than Fitness Chandler Stevens Coach In the grand scheme of things, your PRs and race times aren’t that important. There, I’ve said it.Improving yourself is always something to be proud of, but there’s more to movement than exercise. Hang tight with...

By DAVID CRUZ, DC, CSCS, FMS, SFMA Ankle sprains are one of the most common injuries among physically active people accounting for an estimated 23,000 sprains — daily –that are attributed to athletic activity. (1) Basketball players suffer the highest incidence rate...